Unnecessary Seclusion (Merle Dixon x OFC) (Complete)

Chapter 1

As I lounged on my loveseat staring into the glowing fireplace in the quaint cabin I had acquired for myself a few weeks back, I thought about the reasons I had left Alexandria. There had been a couple, but there was one in particular that haunted me.

Alexandria had been my new home. My group, which I was no longer a part of, had ended up there after being on the road after the fall of the prison, our old home. We had lost many people since the world had gone to shit, people I had grown to care for and missed terribly.

Our two most recent devastating losses were Glenn and Abraham. I had been in Negan's lineup when they had been Lucilled. I had watched in horror when that sociopathic monster had brought his ravenous bitch down on their fragile skulls and smashed them to bloody bits and pieces. They didn't have a skull anymore when he was finished getting his points across.

Fuck me runnin ' with the way Glenn's eye...

I shook my head at the vivid memory, blinking my watery eyes. Scrubbing my hand over my face, I let out a shaky sigh. I was definitely traumatized.

Don't think 'bout it...

That was just one of the reasons I had left Alexandria. I couldn't bear to lose anymore people I cared about. I knew before everything with Negan was done and over with that we would definitely lose more people, a lot more. I didn't want to be a witness to war. I couldn't deal with anymore losses, and I wouldn't. Especially if one of those people happened to be Merle.

Losing Merle would be the one thing to push me over the edge. My sanity was already hanging by a single thread. My nails were dug into the edge of the steep cliff I was desperately trying to hang on to. Merle dying would make me plummet into the dark abyss that was my fragile mind. I wouldn't be able to come back from that, and I knew it, so I had left before that could happen. I'd rather live in an alternate reality here in my cabin and think Merle was alive and well from afar than observe his demise.

Merle and I had lived together in a house in Alexandria, but we went way back to the beginning of the shit storm that had swept over the world. We had been traveling companions in the beginning. I had found him in the foyer of an abandoned apartment building right after he had lost his hand. He had been dying from blood loss and infection, and he had been thirsty and starving. He had been delusional at first. He didn't even realize I had taken him under my wing until he had a few days worth of antibiotics in his system.

After Merle was in his right mind again, he hadn't wanted my help at all. In fact, he had flat out refused my hand. He had been a real sexist asshole with a terribly perverse mouth and damaged pride in the beginning. He had hated the fact that he needed help. He had told me to leave him the fuck alone unless I planned on giving him my pussy, that he could take care of himself, and that he didn't need a woman holding him back. I ignored all his degrading and perverted comments because my morals told me I couldn't just leave him to die.

Merle quickly perceived while he was healing that I was no ordinary woman and that I was quite intelligent, resourceful and self-reliant. He realized he didn't need to take care of me, that I wasn't a burden, and I would never hold him back.

Once Merle got over himself and his damaged pride, we discovered we had a lot in common. We liked a lot of the same things and had the same beliefs and code systems. I grew to enjoy his abrasive, blunt personality. He loved the fact that I wouldn't take shit from him, and he actually liked that I wouldn't fuck him no matter how hard he tried. He loved that I challenged him. He stopped trying to fuck me after awhile and learned to respect me.

We became fast friends who constantly watched each other's backs, and after Merle's wrist was healed enough to where he could move on without me, we decided not to split up and to stay together. We mutually thought two people surviving out in the dead-infested world were better than one, and it turned out we were right.